The Magus - John Fowles [189]
the language that I do. "I said, I see nothing any more. Wimmel replied: Perhaps I should make you watch the dialogue between my men and that animal. I said, I beg you not to. He asked me if I thought he enjoyed such scenes. I did not answer. Then he said, I should be very happy to sit at my headquarters. To have nothing to do but sign papers and enjoy the beautiful classical monuments. You do not believe me. You think I am a sadist. I am not. I am a realist. "Still I sat in silence. He planted himself in front of me, and said, You will be placed under guard in a separate room. I will give orders that you have something to eat and drink. As one civilised man to another, I regret the incidents of today and the incidents in the next room. You will not, of course, be one of the hostages. "I looked up at him, I suppose with a shocked gratitude. "He said, You will remember that like every other officer I have one supreme purpose in my life, the German historical purpose--to do my duty, which is to bring order into the chaos of Europe. Nothing--nothing!--stands between me and that duty. "I cannot tell you how, but I knew he was lying. One of the great fallacies of our time is that the Nazis rose to power because they imposed order on chaos. Precisely the opposite is true--they were successful because they imposed chaos on order. They tore up the commandments, they denied the superego, what you will. They said, You may persecute the minority, you may kill, you may torture, you may couple and breed without love. They offered humanity all its great temptations. Nothing is true, everything is permitted. "Unlike most Germans, I believe Wimmel knew, had always known, this. Exactly what he was. Exactly what he was doing. And that he was playing with me. It did not seem so at first. He gave me one last look and then went out, and I heard him speak to one of the guards who had brought me. I was taken to a room on another floor and given something to eat and a bottle of German beer. At this point the experience seemed to me something like that at Neuve Chapelle. I had many feelings, but the dominant one was that I was going to survive. I was still going to see the sun shining. To breathe, to eat bread, to touch a keyboard. "The night passed. I was brought more food in the morning, allowed to wash. Then at half-past ten I was made to go out. I found all the other hostages waiting. They had not been given anything to drink or eat and I was forbidden to speak to them. There was no sign of Wimmel or of Anton. "We came to the harbour. The entire village was there, some four or five hundred people, black and grey and faded blue, crammed onto the quays with a line of _die Raben_ watching them. The village priests, the women, even little boys and girls. They screamed as we came into sight. Like some amorphous protoplasm. Trying to break bounds, but unable to. "We went on marching. There is a large house with huge Attic acroteria facing the harbour--you know it?--in those days there was a taverna on the ground floor. On the balcony above I saw Wimmel and behind him Anton, flanked by men with machine guns. I was made to stand against the wall under the balcony, among the chairs and tables. The hostages went marching on. Up a street and out of sight. "It was very hot. A perfect blue day. The villagers were driven from the quay to the terrace with the old cannons in front of the taverna. They stood crowded there. Brown faces upturned in the sunlight, black kerchiefs of the women fluttering in the breeze. I could not see the balcony, but the colonel waited above, impressing his silence on them, his presence. And gradually they fell absolutely quiet, a wall of expectant faces. Up in the sky I saw swallows and martins. Like children playing in a house where some tragedy is taking place among the adults. Strange, to see so many Greeks... and not a sound. Only the tranquil cries of little birds. "Wimmel began to speak. The collaborationist interpreted. "_You will now see what happens to those_... _those who are the enemies of Germany_... _and to those who